NOYDB
The actual Enumeration [of the states’ population] shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they [Congress] shall by Law direct. — U. S. Constitution, Article I, Section 2
There has been concern expressed lately about just how much power has been and is continuing to be ceded by the legislative branch of the United States government to the judicial and executive branches — but most particularly to the latter.
Case in point: the 2010 census. At least two representatives in the House have major misgivings about the "American Community Survey" (ACS) which will be imposed on U. S. citizens next year.
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) says she will flatly refuse to complete the entire census form, save for disclosing how many people live in her residence; she maintains that the Constitution calls only for that and nothing else. Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) agrees: "This is Big Brother at its worst," he says; "the federal government has no business keeping a comprehensive personal profile on every American citizen."
Furthermore, with the census comes the likely involvement of the controversial — some would call it criminal — organization ACORN (which, as political payback, will be receiving more taxpayer funding in the future):
[Bachmann] fears ACORN, the community organizing group currently under indictment in several states for alleged voter registration fraud, will be part of the Census Bureau’s door-to-door information collection efforts under the direction of the White House.
So what could be so alarming about a little old survey; here are a couple of samples of what it asks (read Jerome Corsi’s WorldNet Daily article for the full monty):
* [T]he ACS asks what year the building was built, when "Person No. 1" from the housing section moved into the home; how many acres the home is on; what agricultural products were sold from the property in the last 12 months; whether the property was used as a business; how many separate rooms are in the house; whether the house has hot and cold running water; whether the house has a flush toilet, a shower or bathtub, a sink with a faucet, a stove or range, a refrigerator, and a telephone; how many cars, vans and trucks are kept at the property; and what fuel is most used at the property – gas, electricity, fuel oil or kerosene, coal or coke, wood, solar energy, or "other."
* Further, the housing section asks what was last month’s bill for energy, the cost of water and sewage for the housing unit in the last year, whether anyone in the household received food stamps in the last year, the monthly rental or mortgage cost of the unit, an estimate of the resale value of the housing unit, the unit’s annual property taxes, and the annual cost of fire, hazard and flood insurance on the property.
Try finding any justification for that kind of snooping in Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution.
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Mad scientist update
Michelle Malkin adds more information about President Obama’s "Science Czar," John Holdren. There seems to be a double standard in effect when a person’s qualifications for holding a government position are considered (big surprise, huh?):
The New York Times recently warned its readers about a wacky scientist in the Obama administration. But the fish wrap of record let the real nut job off the hook.
Reporting last week on the president’s choice to head the National Institutes of Health, Times writer Gardiner Harris noted that praise for Dr. Francis S. Collins “was not universal or entirely enthusiastic.” The geneticist is causing “unease,” according to the Times, because of his “his very public embrace of religion.”
Stomachs are apparently churning over a book Collins wrote describing his conversion to Christianity.
It’s called – gasp! – “The Language of God.” Harris intoned: “Religion and genetic research have long had a fraught relationship, and some in the field complain about what they see as Dr. Collins’s evangelism.”
And … that’s it. Yes, the mere profession of Collins’s faith is enough to warrant red flags and ominous declamations. A quarter of all Americans identify themselves as evangelical Christians and “publicly embrace their religion.” But to the Times, Collins’ open affiliation with 60 million Americans believers in Christ is headline news.
Meanwhile, eco-zealot and would-be holocaust provider John Holdren gets a pass from the Times:
Holdren’s [proposed] planetary regime would also breed out undesirables “who contribute to social deterioration” and “insist that all illegitimate babies be put up for adoption—especially those born to minors, who generally are not capable of caring properly for a child alone.”
Single mothers who wanted to keep their children would be “obliged to go through adoption proceedings and demonstrate her ability to support and care for it.”
If a conservative blogger or Republican political candidate had published such lunatic claptrap, the Department of Homeland Security would have him on a watchlist. Instead, Holdren is Overlord of Science Policy.
As Michelle informs us, Holdren’s mentor — the man from whom he derived most of his genocidal notions — was Harrison Brown, who wrote:
… there can be no escaping the fact that if starvation is to be eliminated, if the average child is to stand a reasonable chance of living out the normal life span with which he is endowed at birth, family sizes must be limited. The limitation in birth rates must arise from the utilization of contraceptive techniques or abortions or a combination of the two practices.
Clearly, Brown is here employing the propaganda technique of the false dilemma; somehow he never considers improving agricultural methods as a means of eliminating starvation. Anyone’s eyesight — and foresight — will always suffer when they insist on living in a tunnel.
—Mike Gray